Radio (local news bulletin) - Evaluation
Over the past couple of months, we have been completing our radio show together and have produced a 5 minute news bulletin that would be heard on the local radio, for example, our main inspiration, Key 103.
There are many conventions which are part of a radio news bulletin, such as headlines, jingles, vox pops, outside broadcasts, interviews and an external pre recorded piece with an expert. We have made sure to use all the above with the aid of listening to Key 103, and actually hearing how they make up a news bulletin. With this in mind, we took ideas and developed our own to form an individual bulletin. Using an example of this, we listened to the opening of the Key 103 radio show, we found our own individual music; we made creative links between topic changes, e.g. “Recognise this…? [Firework sound clip]” (the introduction to bonfire night topic). We also made sure to use copyright free music for the jingles and for the background music. Although we had many ideas of our own about the structure of a radio show, we also thought it was best to stick to the original forms and conventions, purely for the reason that we felt it already worked really well, and didn’t want to make it too different.
Whilst researching about the different techniques that are used on a radio show, we found a page on the BBC website which listed each technique and gave help and advice on how to do these successfully and this helped us to produce our show. We tried to stick to the rules that a normal radio show has to abide by, such as including the public in the show itself and the information to be honest and fair. Finally, a show that produces no material that is likely to lead to hatred or discrimination. As mentioned previously in the blog and the planning, we looked at www.rajar.co.uk which gave us the demographics of numerous radio shows; it showed the differences their target audiences and viewing figures. This helped us to decide what kind of radio show we wanted ours to be, in conjunction with listening to some shows to give us ideas. In the planning and the blog, we constructed a table which included many demographics for some radio shows.
With Key 103 being our main motive, and the audience being mainly the younger age group due to the types of music, the conversations they talk about and also the advertisements, we decided to make ours the same. As we are younger anyway, it seemed like the best idea as we have more knowledge in this area. Also, the audience would be listening from local surroundings due to the news being mainly regional.
We tried to make our jingles and background music catchy as this is vital for people to keep listening to a show, the conversations had to short and snappy in a colloquial style, but to the point. The same applies to the news in order for it to run smoothly, however, it had to be spoken in a more formal tone as it is a serious issue for the community. This keeps the listeners attention and makes the show run smoothly. We also addressed the audience directly by mentioning “…give us your views, text in on…” This makes the listener feel involved in the show.
Once we had developed the script, putting it a structured running order, we went to the recording studio to do the final recordings. We decided to have the two presenters being ourselves, but also using other people for the weather and travel; we used a male for some voices to make sure there was a contrast in the show and not just the two of us all the way through. When we were speaking, our voices were continually enthusiastic and upbeat, definitely not monotone! In the recording studio, we used audacity, specifically designed for the task and is a simple ‘record and speak’ format. We saved it as a WAV, which let us easily convert it into Adobe Premier Pro, which we could then edit accordingly and to perfection. Digital recording meant that I could judge the sound volume both during and after the recording took place. This means that keeping consistent levels throughout the show was much simpler.
It was more difficult to do the vox pops as we had to use a portable recording device, we then had to find an appropriate location, and once again edit accordingly. Outside broadcasts were also done using the same format. We also used audacity to extract sounds or quotes from copyright free sources; these were then put into our radio show and made it more interesting and lively.
We found it very interesting whilst making our radio show; it was also good to learn how actual radio stations construct their shows and made us think about the time and effort you have to spend making it perfect. We had lots of fun doing the recordings and when we finally finished the radio news bulletin, we asked other people to listen to our work and give their opinions to see if there was any way in which we could improve. Our tutor felt that we needed to re-record a couple of our conversations in order for it to run smoothly and be more upbeat and fun. This was good advice.
As for problems, the only minor one we had was doing an outside broadcast. Once we had recorded, we converted it to our project and found out that the voices were unclear. There were unfortunately no effects that we could use to combat this, so we had to re-record the piece. Also, it proved quite difficult to find news quotes from copyright free sources, but we sorted it in the end. There were no major issues as we found Adobe Premier Pro to be an excellent piece of software, and any effects that we needed could be done easily.
Finally, we believe that our radio news bulletin was very successful, and with the amount of time and effort we put into it, it has hopefully paid off. With other people’s views to add to this, it helped greatly for minor improvements. However, they even thought that our show sounded like the real thing which was pretty impressive! As quoted by a fellow student, “that is really good! It sounds just like a real show!” Also, we feel that our understanding of editing has improved over the past few months.